Stan Swamy conspired with Maoists to overthrow Govt: Court

The special NIA court that refused bail to 83-year-old activist Stan Swamy in the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case has held that based on material on record Stan Swamy had schemed a "serious conspiracy" with members of a banned Maoist organisation to create unrest in the country and to overthrow the government.Special judge DE Kothalikar, who rejected Stan Swamy's bail plea on Monday, said in his order, which was made available Tuesday, that based on the material on record it seemed Stan Swamy was a member of banned Maoist organisation.

The material that the court referred to included around "140 e-mails between the applicant (Stan Swamy) and his co-accused," the fact that Stan Swamy and others he communicated with, were referred to as "comrades", and that Stan Swamy had received Rs eight lakh from one "Comrade Mohan", allegedly for the furtherance of Maoist activities. "Prima facie it can be gathered that the applicant along with other members of the banned organisation hatched a serious conspiracy to create unrest in the entire country and to overpower the Government, politically and by using muscle power," Judge Kothalikar said in his order.

"The material placed on record thus prima facie denote that the applicant was not only the member of banned organisation CPI (Maoist) but he was carrying out activities further in the objective of the organisation which is nothing but to overthrow the democracy of the nation," the order read. The judge also refused to take into the account a published report of alleged tampering with the computer of Stan Swamy's co-accused in the case, Rona Wilson.He said that raising questions on the authenticity of the evidence in the case would amount to interference with the court proceedings.

Stan Swamy was arrested from Ranchi in October, 2020, and has since been in Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai. Stan Swamy had applied for bail in November last year both on medical grounds and on merits. He had said in his plea that he suffered from Parkinson's disease, and had lost hearing in both his ears.Stan Swamy had also argued that while in the Taloja prison, he had to be shifted to the prison hospital owing to his ill health.